


Almost, Almost

by SeriousMistakes (TruckThat)



Category: Free!
Genre: First Time, M/M, Pining, stupid handjobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 09:28:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2343527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TruckThat/pseuds/SeriousMistakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haru has been making a study of the situation.   It’s not always easy for him, he knows, to read the cues that other people take for granted.  It’s not easy for him to give the cues that other people expect.  But with Rin, Haru has been <i>trying</i>. </p>
<p>Rin has mostly just been trying not to lose his cool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost, Almost

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about any inconsistencies with the more recent episodes of Eternal Summer--this was actually written back in July. (Oops!) But frankly I don't think there's so much plot here that it's going to make a difference.
> 
> Also, teenage boys are morons and I, too, am probably a moron.

Whenever Haru is there, Rin feels it. There’s this thing—this thing like an ache, or an itch, or the drive to compete. It’s hell. He can’t get rid of it. It’s hell even when Haru isn’t around and Rin wishes that he was, and it’s much, much worse when Haru is solid in front of him, sleek in the water next to him, there right beside him and staring at him with eyes so calm that it doesn’t make sense. When he’s staring and Rin keeps _staring back_ and they’re friends again now, but even so, all Rin’s thinking is, what the hell is he going to do? Because there’s no way that this is enough. There’s this thing that he can’t stop feeling and it feels worst of all standing right here where he is now, right in the goddamn deserted middle of Haru’s street. He’s going to walk around the corner and up the stairs and right up to Haru’s front door, he’s going to—he’s going to do nothing, he knows.

It’s hell and it’s been this bad forever: since he came back from Australia, since the years when he was gone, since months and months before he left and since before he noticed it. He hadn’t actually known that this was the kind of thing that could get worse. And then their last-minute mashup of a relay team won and for one heaving, still second Haru was gasping and Rin had both arms slung around him and Rin was crying but everything was almost perfect.

And Rin fucked it up. He let go. He didn’t say a word about it.

When Rin thinks about it now, he is almost, almost, almost sure that he remembers that Haru was leaning in, was pressing in against him too. Almost sure, but not quite.

Obviously he fucked it up; he was always going to. It’s better to be friends with Haru than to be enemies, better to laugh with him and even train with him than to be always chasing after him on the sidelines and skulking after him in the dark. But the way things are now is somehow worse anyway. He’s got half and he wants the whole, and it feels like he’s lying. He doesn’t want to lie to Haru at all and somehow he just keeps on doing it anyway, and Haru just keeps on watching him when he thinks he’s not looking with no expression that Rin can read. Thinking that Rin doesn’t see is Haru’s mistake: Rin doesn’t know how to stop looking.

So it’s practically Haru’s fault, almost. Maybe. It’s probably Rin’s fault.

And if one night he’s hungry late after the cafeteria is closed, and if he finds himself on the train instead of at the burger place down the street, and if he gets off at the station by Haru’s house—it’s more honest than he’s been in weeks. He’ll turn around without ever making it as far as Haru’s front door and this will just be one more thing not to admit. There’s no one else out here this time of night; it’s not like anyone but Rin is going to know. It won’t even be the first time that this has happened. And Rin already knows—God, he fucking _knows_.

This thing can’t keep happening and he knows it. This thing is never going to happen.

So it’s probably just as well that things are still weird between them even now that they’re friends again. The fact that Rin behaved like an asshole for months and Haru probably still hates him for it makes it a bit easier to stop himself from doing something stupid. It gives him something else to think about, when he starts to think that maybe these bad ideas are worth trying out just in case. When he starts to wonder if the burning that he can’t stop feeling is really shame or if it’s something worse and much more fatal.

Maybe Rin’s just being melodramatic, shit, he doesn’t know. But it’s starting to drizzle and he’s starting to feel like a chickenshit and he needs to go. It’s time to be getting back to the dorm—it’s _past_ time to stop this, if he’s not going to do anything about it. And he’s not. And of course that’s exactly when someone in the street behind him says, “Rin?”

There’s a queasy moment where he’s terrified that his feet won’t move to turn him around.

 

As if just thinking about him is enough, Rin is suddenly there. On Haruka’s street. For no reason at all that Haru can imagine and, despite all the things that Haru doesn’t quite understand, for just half a second Haru is pleased to see him. When Rin turns around that dries right up, because his fists are clenched and he is _angry_.

“What the hell,” Rin says, very quietly. “What the _hell_ Nanase, why did you have to show up _now_?”

Rin hasn’t called him that since—Haru doesn’t know. Not like that. He calls him that when he’s joking, sometimes—maybe, like a locker room taunt—but Haru is fairly sure that it’s not a joke right now and it stops him in his tracks. He’s blank. It kind of stings. Like Rin hates him again, only it’s been established that the opposite is probably the case so this is just... confusing. But Haru nods: right. Rin is pissed off for no reason that Haru can possibly understand, fine; Haru is familiar with this scenario, even if it hasn’t happened lately. It will probably resolve itself. Since his own reasons for being there are actually completely self-explanatory, Haru just keeps going, trusting that Rin and whatever argument Rin has come to have with him will follow him home.

“Where the hell are you going?” Rin growls. He dogs along exactly like Haru knew he would. “You can’t think that I’ll just—”

“We’re going to my house,” Haru interrupts, very precisely, because if Rin is going to act like an idiot then Haru can treat him like one. Rin says nothing, which does nothing to explain whether this was the right course of action or just one of a multitude of wrong ones. It’s the course of action he’s using now, so it doesn’t matter. “I’m too thirsty to talk to you in the street. Also, it’s dark.”

He opens the door and Rin stomps inside after him, silent except for the grumpy way he scuffs off his shoes. In the kitchen he can feel Rin behind him like a cold tidal swell of incoherent rage but Haru is numb to it, putting his convenience store shopping away, getting glasses out, filling them with water and turning option after option over in his brain as fast as he can. There’s no reason for Rin to be here, none at all. No upcoming tournaments, no joint practices, no appointment that Haru has forgotten and missed, nothing either of them have said to each other recently that was beyond the norm, and that leaves: nothing. Haru hasn’t done anything. But Rin is nevertheless here, in Haru’s kitchen, scowling.

Maybe he’d meant to find Makoto out there, instead? Rin and Makoto are friends too, maybe even better friends than Rin and Haru are right now. Haru fiddles with the tap for a minute until he’s got the water really cold.

“Sorry,” Rin finally growls, discomfortingly close beside his shoulder. “But can we just... not fucking talk about this at all?” Haru turns and slides one full glass down the counter in Rin’s direction, a peace offering because he isn’t quite sure what the right answer to that question is—they _can_ just not talk about it, of course, but Rin followed him home—and Rin slouches back against the counter so hard that dishes rattle when he plants his elbows. “ _Damn_ it,” he sighs, not deflating even a little. He picks the cup up, but he might still be planning to throw it. He sounds pretty mad for someone who actually invited himself in all on his own.

Haru keeps a careful but discrete eye on Rin’s glass even as he drinks his own water. He’s not looking at Rin right now, but he knows exactly what kind of face Rin is making anyway.

The thing is, the more he watches Rin, the more he calculates complicated patterns of cause and effect in his head, in math class, when he should be calculating other things, the more he runs into a set of confounding conclusions. Rin Matsuoka, high school swim captain, is still not the same as Haru’s friend Rin who left for Australia. He has grown up, and even if they’re friendly again that doesn’t change the fact that he has grown bitter. Haru can understand that even if it makes him unhappy. But he does retain one important characteristic, and this is what Haru finds baffling: when no one is looking (no one but Haruka, furtively, out of the corner of his eye) Rin watches Haru with the exact same hard-edged and soft-centred affection that he always has, tempered now by frustration.

Meanwhile Haruka has grown up, too, and he’s stockpiled enough information in that time to put a name to the feeling behind that kind of watching. Rin laughs at Nagisa’s incomprehensible jokes and kids around with Makoto and fundamentally doesn’t understand Rei at all but still manages to wind him up like clockwork, but with Haru, it’s obvious that Rin just pays attention. More attention than he should now that they’re not enemies, more attention than he thinks Haru has noticed. It’s... the most accurate word for that kind of thing is probably yearning _. Liking._ He’s increasingly sure of it. Also, it is extremely confusing, because if Rin feels this way about him—and at this point, Haruka is all but certain of his findings—what on earth is he expected to do about it? And would he even have noticed it, if it wasn’t Rin?

“ _What_ ,” Rin snarls when Haru doesn’t say anything at all, and Haru sighs. This is obviously one of those arguments that is fought entirely inside of Rin’s head, and therefore going nowhere. Which means it’s about something that is Rin’s fault. Maybe something with Nitori?

Unless it really was Makoto he wanted to see, or unless he really _doesn’t_ want to see Haru. Haru is, after all, all _but_ certain. He has spent enough time with Rei over the past few months to know that, mathematically speaking, this means he could still be wrong. That frustration that he sees ticking in Rin could easily be annoyance, could be distrust, and could be anything.

He refills his glass and scrupulously continues not to make eye contact with Rin. “Why are you in my house?”

“I don’t know.” Rin says it so grudgingly that this is probably what is pissing him off in the first place.

Ah. That’s something, and Haru does look at him at that. He waits. Rin drinks his water obediently, now that Haru is watching.

“I didn’t mean to be here, I mean,” Rin mumbles, swallowing. He hisses under his breath, a sound of absolute dissatisfaction. “I just—I don’t know. I was... hungry and I was mad about—shit, about _nothing_ , all right? I didn’t want to see you or anything; I just _came_ here. It’s not my fault you picked now to do your grocery shopping. Who the hell shops right now? Who even runs into somebody in the street and invites them in when it’s the middle of the damn night?”

Haru _tsk_ s. He’s not a moron; he _knows_ Rin, not like he’s some creepy stranger from behind the convenience store, and anyway—well, he’s already decided not to deal with how he definitely didn’t invite him. “You could have called. I’d have met you at the station.” Maybe.

“I wasn’t _lonely_ , idiot,” Rin grumbles. “I’ve got friends that don’t already hate me; I could’ve called one of them.”

Haru raises his eyebrows. So it’s definitely Rin’s fault.

“I do!” Rin insists, sounding squirming and miserable and upset maybe more than angry. More than frustrated. “Fuck, you always just assume that I’m some kind of—pathetic—”

“I don’t.” Haru cuts him off before he can finish, decidedly grumpy about the insinuation. “I don’t do that. And I don’t hate you for coming over, idiot.”

“Not for _that_ , moron. For all the other shit,” Rin says, brushing aside a point that he clearly considers obvious.

“Don’t be stupid.” He’d been hurt, certainly. For a long time, and maybe he’s still hurting. That isn’t the same as not understanding why it had happened. What he doesn’t understand is why the hell this... whatever this is, is happening right now. Now that they’re friends. “That was months ago, Rin. You cried all over me; it’s not like I didn’t get it. I don’t hate you.”

What he hates is having pointless arguments. Or arguments at all, really, and he and Rin had been doing so well on that front until just now. (Miraculously well; he should’ve known it was too easy to last.) It’s a surprise that it’s not a surprise that this can still be Rin’s problem. They _were_ friends again, weren’t they? At the very least? But maybe not; maybe not with the way they’ve been watching each other.

Rin snorts. “What about—” he starts, but he stops halfway.

There’s a hundred things that Rin could end that sentence with, starting with _that_ _time I showed up in your kitchen at midnight and yelled at you but it was definitely my fault_ and ending with _that time I didn’t talk to you for three years_ , and it doesn’t matter much which one he chooses. It’s not like Rin is the only one of them who has ever said the wrong thing at the wrong time. It’s not like one answer is worse than another. Haru cocks his head and waits, because he’s kind of curious to see which one Rin’s picking anyway.

“Never mind,” Rin finishes, quickly. “It’s nothing.”

“Is it?”

But Rin is blushing, barely, and Haru would just politely mention that he’s being a coward about it and also pretty insulting except that, right there, is case closed on the question of how Rin Matsuoka feels about him.

Haru’s finished his water and he has nothing to focus on now except for what’s wrong with Rin. And what’s wrong with Rin is that Rin followed him home. Possibly by accident. If it was even possible to do that kind of thing by accident—and he’s fairly sure that it’s not. Which means that what’s wrong with Rin is that he was looking for Haru, but he didn’t mean for Haru to find _him_. There’s a second like the plunge before hitting the water where Haru does the math in his head that his gut has already figured out. What’s wrong with Rin is that Rin is slouching against Haru’s kitchen counter, about to do something he thinks Haru might hate him for.

Forget not making eye contact: Haru knows that he’s staring.

Rin stiffens up under scrutiny, shuffling upright until he’s perfectly vertical again. He’s _nervous_. It’s inconceivable, because Rin will cry like he’s still twelve and yell things he doesn’t mean and lash out in the wrong direction for months at a time, he will sulk alone for years, but he will never, ever show undisguised fear. Not on purpose, not before a fight. He wouldn’t. And he expects a fight. It’s a revelation even more worrying then that first, sneaking suspicion of Rin’s feelings had been—and what is he supposed to do, what is he supposed to say, to someone who looks at him with so much hope and, worse, with so much _expectation_? He probably isn’t supposed to have noticed it at all.

“Right,” Rin says. He thunks his glass down so hard that it skids. “Right, well, this has been—yeah, but I have to go. I’m gonna—I’ll miss the last train.” And he turns, already half jogging, and he’s out the door and gone before Haru can mention that it’s actually started to rain pretty hard, so maybe he should borrow an umbrella. Maybe it would make more sense to stay the night.

But it’s just as well, because when he goes to put their cups in the sink, Haru’s hands aren’t steady either. It makes him uncomfortable in his own skin, to have that kind of affection aimed straight at him. It’s like Rin has him cornered and now there’s nothing to do _but_ look at Rin, so Haru is looking. What he sees there feels so much like being depended on, though, and he isn’t sure at all what that entails. He isn’t sure what he has that he is willing to offer in return.

 

“Haru!” Rin yells fifteen minutes later, bashing on the door until Haru appears to open it again. “Haru, fuck, let me in. Fucking train’s already gone.” He elbows his way in past Haru, who is standing there like a lump or like an idiot savant who doesn’t even understand about _train schedules_ so badly that he makes other people late. When his soaking wet hair actually drips on Haru’s arm, Haru stops being a space case and steps back to let him through. Too late: Rin’s already in.

“Oh,” Haru asks, “are you staying?” and Rin wants to scream in his face. Again.

It’s raining catastrophically; the kind of rain you can’t get away from because it’s like a steady stream of piss straight from god. It’s so wet out that even his wallet was damp inside when he pulled it out to check for cab fare at the station. There wasn’t any cab fare, of course, and everything is probably even wetter now. He doesn’t have money, doesn’t have a spare shirt, doesn’t even have a reason for being here that he can properly explain, he’s _freezing_ —he jams Haru’s door shut with his heel. “Yeah,” he says, swallowing a gutful of roiling embarrassment, “it looks like.”

“Okay,” Haru says, but slowly, and if the situation is bad enough that even Haru notices it’s weird, then this is going to be a shitty night.

“Okay.” Rin kicks his shoes off. Just don’t look at Haru, maybe, and it will be fine. Don’t stand close to him in the entry; definitely, definitely don’t just brush past him and then stop so close that they’re _still touching_. No matter how much Haru is dry and warm and safe indoors. No matter how much he says he was never really that angry at all—he’s gonna be angry now. Maybe. “Look, I can sleep on the couch or whatever. I’ll catch the train back in the morning; it’s fine.” Hell, Rin knows there’s no guest room, but if he has to he can sleep on the fucking floor.

He isn’t even going to consider a third option. The one where, it’s true, Haru has been watching him back lately; the one where Haru says he doesn’t hate him, and what if he isn’t going to be mad?

“Fine,” Haru parrots. He stares at Rin for a minute, face indecipherable. “You’re cold. I’ll run you a bath.”

Jesus. Rin grits his teeth to stop them from chattering, takes a slow breath and thinks, it’s Haru, it’s only Haru, and then says, “Yeah, sure.”

Fuck off, he knows that there’s no _what if_. He knows it. But still, what if?

 

Haru hesitates at the threshold, unsure. If this were Makoto, if this were a friend he was sure of here in this situation, he would know what to do. He would lend them a bath and a dry t-shirt, and then probably end up sitting on the floor outside the bathroom while they soaked so that they could talk at him through the door about swimming strategy or sports manga or physics homework or how great it was that they were finally having a sleepover. He wouldn’t mind. He’d know where he stood.

But this isn’t Makoto, who loves him so straightforwardly that even Haruka can understand it and, more importantly, who expects nothing in return but Haru’s equal friendship. This isn’t even Nagisa, who is sometimes terrifyingly enthusiastic but always harmless. Rin is... not harmless. Rin looks at Haru sometimes not with warmth but with exhaustion, and Haru would like to know exactly what Rin is looking for—would like, if he could, to give those things to Rin—but he doesn’t understand, because he looks at Rin and none of the things that Haru feels are _tired_. Is that really supposed to go along with all the affection that Haru is almost sure is there as well? Rin is not quite his friend, not anymore. Not quite the same kind of friend he used to be, anyway.

What Rin is, is dripping wet and miserable in his bathroom. Rin is staring at the porcelain edge of Haru’s bathtub and not at Haru. And worst of all, Rin thinks that Haru doesn’t know he’s miserable. He’s always been stupid like that. In other situations, it’s sometimes funny. In this case... Rin is in Haru’s bathroom, and he’s _wet_ , and his shirt is all stuck to him, and he’s _unhappy_ , and there’s _water in the tub_ , it’s steaming and beautiful and perfect enough to share—but for once Rin’s not looking at Haru and so Haru can’t tell what he wants at all. So it’s better, in this case, to assume that Rin wants nothing at all but his privacy. Which means that Haru has succeeded in one thing at least: if he’s going to get anything wrong, he will get it wrong later. Haruka turns to leave Rin to it.

He hangs back a little to watch Rin try and wrestle out of that wet shirt, though, maybe. Just a little bit, out of the corner of his eye, because if Rin can stare then so can Haru. And one thing Haru is certain of is that Rin’s always been worth staring at. There’s a solid twenty seconds of struggle, and then, “Fucking _Jesus Christ_ , Haru, shit. _Fuck_ ,” Rin spits, garbled through wet cotton, followed by something else in English that Haru doesn’t catch but it’s probably more swearing. Haru rolls his eyes and waits patiently to be addressed again.

And then Rin growls and gives up on the shirt without making any progress at all, and turns around, and that’s bad. That was a mistake, to stay in the bathroom. Because he goes blank when he sees Haru, because—Haru adds it up— _he didn’t know that Haru was still there_. Wasn’t actually talking to Haru at all.

“Sorry,” Haru says. It’s not like he always knows right away when he’s gotten it wrong. Sometimes he probably _never_ knows. But Haru’s really gotten it wrong this time and that’s it. He spins on his heel but—somehow he doesn’t make it out the door. All of a sudden Rin’s hand is clammy on the back of Haru’s neck and Haru can’t move a single centimeter. It seems that Haru has misjudged this too.

 

Haru jerks to a stop under his fingers like Rin’s laid a live wire to the back of his neck. He won’t turn to look at Rin. His ears are red. Shit. After a second, Haru says, extremely crisply, “What are you—”

“You ran me a bath.” Rin laughs, but he’s kind of freaking out. It’s not funny. Or, it’s hilarious. “You weren’t looking at the water.”

“No, I was looking at—”

“Yeah,” Rin says. He feels unmoored. His shirt is so wet it _won’t fucking come off_. “Yeah, I know.” He stops fighting with the shirt; it can stay. Haru probably likes it soggy like that. Haru probably likes _him_ like that, at least a little. He takes Haru by the shoulders and turns him around his damn self if Haru won’t look at him on his own, and God, Haru’s face is just barely _also red_.

“I don’t always look at the—”

“Yes, you do,” Rin says, and steps closer. Haru doesn’t budge, and if he took a single breath they’d be chest to chest. So it’s pretty obvious that Haru’s not breathing. “You always stare at the damn water.” He drops to his knees; slides his fingertips all the way down Haru’s sides, ribs, lats, obliques, like he’s counting; and Haru doesn’t flinch. “Usually.” And Haru still doesn’t waver.

Rin presses his whole face into Haru’s stomach, swallowing back a wave of something fizzing and ecstatic that he hasn’t quite earned. “So, do you wanna?” He purrs the question into warm, t-shirt covered skin and feels Haru catch his breath again quick, almost startled. Like Rin hasn’t just—hasn’t finally—fucking figured him out. Like Haru wasn’t watching him and holding still for his touch. His arms are wrapped around Haru’s waist and it’s... yeah. It’s good. It’s not perfect because it isn’t _everything_ , but it’s enough. Haru has hormones too, and who fucking knew?

Haru wants him after all. Haru doesn’t want anything to do with anything that isn’t swimming, Haru sure as hell doesn’t know how to _ask_ for anything that isn’t a race, but he still wants Rin, and Rin can work with that. Haru is fucked up, basically, but Rin can deal. He works his way in under soft cotton at the small of Haru’s back and god, yeah, maybe Haru really is fighting fit again because he’s got all this smooth, honest muscle, jumpy to the touch, and Rin can definitely work with that, too.

“Um,” Haru says, with this huge inhale like he’s been drowning, which is a hell of a lot better than just standing there like he’s made of wood. Rin nuzzles lower, more intent and less affection, because what’s the point in screwing around if they really are gonna screw around? And he’ll make it good. Christ, yeah, he will; if this is what he can have, he wants it more than just once. He skates his fingers back around Haru’s spine and lower, tucks himself in under the waistband of Haru’s jeans. Haru makes a sharp sound and drops dead-fish hands to the top of Rin’s head. Then just leaves them there, which is kind of—hm.

When Rin slides back the few inches he needs to look up and see how Haru’s taking it, just to double-check, Haru is still staring at him. Like he’s gone into shock. Like his joints have locked up. “Rin...”

Shit. Shit shit shit _fuck_. Rin has terribly, horrifically misread him—hasn’t understood anything about Haru at all—and this, surely, is one thing that Haru will not be able to shrug off or forgive.

Before Rin can unfreeze and scramble away, though, Haru is saying, rushing, “Wait, Rin, I don’t know how to...” and he’s definitely lost but possibly not disgusted, and Rin thinks: how to what? And then he realizes exactly what, not that it’s hard, not that there’s more than one issue on the fricking table, here—and scrambles upright so fast that he sways on his feet.

“Do you mean,” Rin asks, _extremely_ carefully, “that you’ve never, um, had sex?” Is that even what they’re trying to do? Fucking around. He was so sure that was it, so sure that he hadn’t imagined it. He was pretty sure that was at least half of what he wanted. He is, at minimum, very sure he’s blushing at least as badly as he’s about to start shaking.

Haru nods slowly. “Yes,” he says, reaching out to steady Rin, “that too.” And it’s a wrenching relief to have Haru touch him on purpose and to not be wrong about that one thing. But he looks—he looks seriously worried still, in his Haru way, which is to say that he’s frowning very slightly.

“ _Or_ ,” and Rin closes his eyes here because even with years of Haru experience, he cannot look at Haru and ask him this ridiculous question. Because it’s Haru it is, just barely, imaginable and therefore he steels himself and asks anyway: “Or, do you mean that you don’t know how to let someone make you come?”

“Yes,” Haru says. “Exactly. I think that I don’t.”

Rin is never opening his eyes again. He’s just going to stand here with his hands on Haru’s shoulders and that way he’ll know when Haru leaves so that he will know when it is safe to just die alone. That’s—he shouldn’t react like that, with a full body flush that he can _feel_ , like his knees are going to collapse; he shouldn’t suddenly want Haru _more_ —that’s _bad_. It’s impossible, and it’s bad.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to, though,” Haru adds, very helpfully considering that he’s got one hand still sort of absently braced on Rin’s bicep and has no idea that Rin is about to commit a sex crime. Rin can actually _hear_ the way that Haru’s looking at him, head to one side like Rin’s some weird citrus that might go nicely with grilled fish, only Haru’s not sure if he’s on sale for a good price. “Actually, I’m pretty sure I do. Want to. Do you?”

“I—you—sit _down_ ,” Rin grinds out. That isn’t what he meant to say, but it’ll do for now when Haru plunks down obediently on the edge of the bath. When Rin braves looking at him again, he’s just waiting there. He is fucking _waiting for instruction_. Rin gives up for a just second and leans in and sort of just—like it’s some kind of accident, because it _is_ —just sort of runs his open mouth, teeth included, up the unbelievably close and suddenly accessible length of Haru’s throat—and it’s not quite a caress and not the kiss he wishes it was either, but it’s done and it’s fast enough that no one either chickens out or gets carried away and topples them both into the water—and he says, “ _Yes_ , I fucking want to.”

Then he kneels down again, meticulously carefully this time, because his knees really are going to give out and there’s this sizzling blank noise in his head. It’s a sound comprised of one hundred percent blind arousal and also at least thirty percent terror. Maybe more like seventy. He pushes Haru’s thighs apart to make room, but cautiously—he’s not going to screw this up any more than he already has, and he can feel how tense Haru is now that every single neuron Rin has left is flashing high-alert red like, _pay attention_. But the really nice thing about Haru is that it’s always either yes or no and never maybe, and so he lets Rin in with only a tiny ripple of hesitation. Rin is fiercely grateful for small mercies. He’s even more grateful when he manages to talk in words that are more than just the embarrassing scraping sound of pure need rubbing up against his sudden, horrible nerves. “You know how this works though, right?” he asks from between Haru’s thighs.

“Yes. Of course. You were in my health class.” Haru looks down at him like he’s gone insane. As if to prove it, he pops the button on his fly himself. For once, holy shit, he’s not wearing swimming trunks under there. Holy _shit_. He’s not wearing anything, and he’s more than half hard, and just, Jesus. Who walks around their house like that? And he doesn’t even move to touch himself—and if Rin doesn’t get a hold of himself _right now_ he’s going to ask what the hell Haru does about this if he _doesn’t masturbate_ and that—that would probably be a great way to fuck this up. _Alert, alert_.

The saliva pools in Rin’s mouth. He’s trying so hard to watch Haru, to make sure this is okay, but. One of them is definitely nuts. Definitely. And Rin is licking a wet stripe over his own palm and reaching out very slowly so that there’s no more surprises, and it’s _definitely_ him.

 

“Hmn,” Haru says, considering. Rin’s hand closes hot and sort of wettish around him and, actually, it’s fairly—Rin is watching him with hooded eyes like he’s actually putting quite a bit of effort into looking up at Haru’s face and not down at his penis, and then he moves his hand, a little more pressure and a little bit of friction and—yes, it’s really pretty good. In an unfamiliar, warm pleasure in the pit of his stomach sort of way. Another twisting stroke, surer, harder, and he catches his breath, and Rin catches his, too. It’s—good like the first dive off the starting block, good like something he wants to stretch himself into and really enjoy. Rin is touching his dick and that’s surprisingly nice but it’s surprisingly nice _everywhere_ , hot and sweet up the back of his neck and right down to his toes, which is weird. Unexpected. He sighs out, carefully, and relaxes into it, and now he won’t have to admit that he’d been kind of worried that he wouldn’t like it. Or that it might tickle.

He rocks into Rin’s grip and that makes it even nicer but weirder, too—it doesn’t tickle at all, and Rin grins pointily like he approves. Like he knows exactly how much it doesn’t tickle, and like it was a mistake that Haru is never going to live down to confess to Rin that he has never done this. But Rin didn’t laugh then and he’s not quite laughing now. His other hand is pulling Haru’s jeans down around his hips, is dragging back up bared skin, is delicately but barely gently doing _something_ Haru hadn’t even considered to his balls, and Haru doesn’t know what to do with any of his limbs so he settles for kind of petting Rin on the top of his head. “Yeah?” Rin says, all growly and quiet and still not laughing, and bends in closer. Haru does like it, maybe a lot.

“Yeah.”

Rin relaxes when Haru does, as if he’d been worried too—and he’d been worse than worried; he’d been frantic, but Haru could have told him he was being stupid, if only he’d asked properly—and now that he’s not paying as much attention to what Haru is doing, Haru is free to pay attention to _him_. He’s used to focusing on Rin, to the rhythm of Rin in the water or the set of his shoulders on the block or the uncertainty of his mood. He’s used to struggling to understand what, exactly, Rin wants from him, but for once, Rin is being perfectly clear.

Rin is leaning in. He’s letting Haru mess his rained-on hair up—is ignoring it, actually, except for the way that he _might_ have shifted in to make it easier for Haru to reach, while Haru pulls wet hunks of it up into spikes just for the way it feels between his fingers; and this is the most certain of him that Haru has ever been. Haru is right about Rin after all like he always ultimately is and like Rin never expects him to be. It’s not always easy for Haru, he knows, to read the cues that other people take for granted. It’s not easy for him to give the cues that other people expect. But with Rin, Haru has been _trying_. If this is everything Rin wants from him, then this is something Haru is increasingly sure he can give.

He quits messing around with Rin’s hair, as nice as the way Rin tipped in a little bit closer when he did it had been, because really, it’s Rin he wants to be holding on to, and the whole rest of Rin’s broad shoulders is right there. He’d like to tell Rin that he’s pretty sure there was never any reason to worry at all—but, later. Not now. He keeps getting caught on watching the furrow of ferocious concentration between Rin’s eyebrows.

Honestly, it’s ridiculous that Rin is trying _so hard_ for him when it turns out that this is probably a very easy thing to do, and he’s considering whether that makes it even more ridiculous to feel something so soft and warm over something as small as that little wrinkle—when Rin shifts minutely and what was good is suddenly, sharply, impossibly _better_. Rin hisses in satisfaction, like he’s cracked the code, and circles slippery fingers around and over the head of Haru’s cock as he drags up. And then does it again. Slipperier. That’s— _oh_. Haru curls his fists in the sleeves of Rin’s damp t-shirt and struggles to pay attention. Struggles to breathe in and then out again. That might be bad.

It’s really—it’s very—Rin’s mouth is very close to him, and Haru should definitely say something. Because. Oh. Because nothing is working right, and he can’t feel _anything_ , nothing at all, except for Rin; except for the places Rin is touching him or _not touching him_ or not touching him _fast_ enough; except for the open heat of Rin’s mouth which is so close and he doesn’t know why he can’t stop _looking_ but he knows that this isn’t—it’s not going to—he’s—oh. Oh, that sound was him.

 

“Ah—!” Haru says, and then something fast that sounds like “wait, Rin, _oh_ ” and that Rin interprets as _holy shit, don’t stop_. Well, that’s idiotic. He’s got Haru’s dick in his hand, fucking finally; of course he’s not going to stop. And Rin is going to be _so_ nice about this, even though Haru’s mouth is hanging open and he’d so obviously let Rin do anything right now, let Rin devour him any way he wants; even though Rin is starving for all those things that Haru just _might_ let him do so bad it’s taking everything he’s got not to sink his teeth in right here. He can’t have this once and only once. He is going to do this as _sweetly_ as he knows how, as steadily and—and Haru is shifting fruitlessly, yanking at Rin like he’d yank Rin in closer only there’s nowhere closer to _go_ —and maybe Rin’ll even—and that’s when Haru jerks violently and gets jizz all over the side of Rin’s face. Obviously.

He looks so fucking stunned about it, too, sitting on the edge of his tub with his eyes huge and blank and his bare toes curled and his whole chest heaving. Rin can’t help it. They stare at each other like that, with Rin thinking that that took exactly ninety seconds, maybe less, and Haru so obviously thinking absolutely nothing at all, never thinking anything ever again probably, and Rin _loses his shit_. He collapses with his face in Haru’s bony knees and just laughs until he cries. He laughs until Haru’s arms come back online and he swats Rin back off of him again, laughs until he’s choking, until Haru reaches out with fingers that he doesn’t seem to have full control over yet and brushes at the stickiness across Rin’s cheekbone with something like amazement and Rin isn’t laughing at all anymore.

Because, fuck.

Rin sits back on the floor and topples Haru back with him. Just takes him by the belt loops that Rin never did quite manage to get rid of and brings him along. Haru comes along easily, amazingly, all softened surprise and not a trace of his earlier hesitancy. So Rin hauls Haru into him, taking shameless advantage of Haru’s sudden, easy pliability to get almost as close as he has probably always wanted to be, and they kneel there on the tile while Haru miraculously lets him press his overheating face into the side of Haru’s jaw and Rin just tries to keep on breathing and give nothing away that he hasn’t given already. It’s a simple thing but it isn’t easy, because Haru smells like deodorant and swimming pool and boy (and a little like jizz, now), he smells _amazing_ , and Rin has never quite been this close to getting what he wants before. It’s only with Haru; it’s _always_ with Haru. Haru is such an asshole.

And Haru is watching him sideways with a tiny, close-distance frown, dragging shiny, sticky, gross fingers down the side of Rin’s neck and across his collarbone until he hits the edge of Rin’s shirt collar and snags there. Rin could kiss him. Right now, for real. With tongue. He could slide his mouth two inches to the left and a little bit forward, and he could do it. He knows how, even.

He’s kissed girls before, and he doesn’t remember why, because he should have been kissing _Haru_.

“Can we do that again?” Haru asks. His face, which is still a fucking wide-eyed mess of surprise by Haru standards, in reality betrays only the mildest interest.

“Only if it’s my turn,” Rin says, and it comes out low and rough as ground-up asphalt.

First things first though, he wipes Haru’s come off of his face onto Haru’s own shirt collar before it can dry and make everything worse. Haru doesn’t even try not to let him. It sort of feels like everything is worse anyway, because now that Rin’s there he’d like to stay there burrowed into Haru forever, and also he’d like to rip all the rest of Haru’s clothes off with his teeth and then pound him through the porcelain tile, thank you _very_ much, and mostly he really, really wants Haru to stop blinking at him so close he can feel his eyelashes drag and just touch his goddamn cock. He wants everything all at once, so badly that he’s gotten stuck.

He’ll have to save the first two for later, although it’s regrettable, and although the act of just pulling back a little so that he can press in again makes him gasp, makes him realize he _hurts_. Haru lets him do that, too; he just kneels there steady as a slightly fucked-out post and lets Rin rub up against his hip once. Only once, because then Rin has to stop sharply and breathe extremely carefully, and _Christ_ , that was close.

He is _not_ gonna... do that, not like that, when he’s got Haru right here.

“Rin,” Haru says, and Rin grits his teeth but does not otherwise move. What the hell now? “Rin, I think it’ll be better if you take your pants off.”

Yeah, well, he’s about to take Haru’s _face_ off, and also it’s about to make no difference at all—is what Rin definitely does not say, with all the very last shreds of his self-control. He’s not angry, he is so far from mad right now, but he’s going to die like this. He shuts his eyes for a second; he reels himself back in from the brink. He’s going to be rational, because he knows that this is a situation that calls for some finesse. “Then shut the hell up and _help with it_ , idiot,” Rin barks.

He’s been in such a goddamn rush that he’s got Haru’s jeans pulled down only barely enough to get some skin, and that’s—gonna have to do it for Rin as well, because Haru actually does help. Inasmuch as he undoes Rin’s fly and kind of drags at his boxers and Rin would have taken even that much friction, but Haru does it _with delicacy_ and Rin might actually kill him for that. He looks from Rin’s erection to his burning face with rapt attention, hands at his sides, and Rin bares his teeth in a snarl of terrible, undeniable, overwhelming rage and—fuck it. Just, fuck it. He kisses him.

Rin’s not confused about what is and is not happening here; he knows some kind of weird, first-time, locker room-style sexual experience when he sees it, and he just does not fucking care.

And Haru still doesn’t flinch, not even then with their mouths sliding wet together, and those eyelashes that have been pissing Rin off all night brush closed against his cheek. He’d like to stop, if he could. He’d like to pull back and call Haru a weirdo and go jack off somewhere else, before it’s much too late, but it’s much too late already and Haru opens his mouth so easily for him, like it’s nothing and like it’s exactly what Haru wants—and who the hell knows if Haru even _knows_ what he wants, anyway—that Rin thinks he might have been being hysterical about the whole thing.

It feels fantastic. It feels awful, right down to the soles of Rin’s wet socks.

At least Haru’s seventeen too, so that after a minute or two it’s not like it’s a challenge to get him really interested again. As a bonus, Haru gapes like a surprised mackerel when Rin tries it, as if it is completely news to him that Rin could just pet him a little and _do_ that. Get him hardening up in Rin’s hand, round two. He makes a little noise like “oomph,” a shock and pleasure and discomfort noise, and leans all the way in again like, okay, he’s just going to drape himself there and let Rin have whatever he wants from him. Like Haru really didn’t know that was how it worked, or that it was in fact possible to get an erection on purpose—and to be fair, he’s apparently never tried it. So maybe reciprocity is going to be too much for Rin to ask for here. Haru wrapped heavily around his shoulders and flexing bodily into him is a nice enough second choice, though. He is deeply and hotly glad that Haru is absolutely letting Rin put his tongue in his mouth while he does it. Now that Rin’s calmed himself down a bit, at least.

“Seriously?” Rin breathes against Haru’s temple, regrettably pulling back and also getting hair in his mouth and still definitely not giving a shit. Haru’s all over him like something straight from someone’s kind of shitty honeymoon fantasy, like maybe a fantasy with pirate abductions, _not_ that Rin’s had those, but Rin is distracted again. “You’ve never...?”

Haru grumbles and arches forward, simultaneously digging his nose painfully into the place under Rin’s ear and grinding their cocks together. Which is one half of a genius idea. “Don’t be stupid. But this is good.”

And it is good, and it’s stunningly even better when Haru makes the kind of meaningful, inches-away eye contact that he usually saves for the most embarrassing possible moments and goes right for the reciprocity that Rin has just resigned himself to _never getting_. “This is good, right?” Haru mumbles again, right there against him, like he’s looking for confirmation that Rin has been waiting for Haru to touch him, exactly there, exactly like that, since literally before they even hit puberty.

“Ngh.” Okay, so Rin is fairly sure that he’s not the one who was being stupid. But there’s an offer here that needs taking advantage of, one that he’s sort of still dying for, and he doesn’t have time to argue the point. Besides, the way he spreads out for Haru’s touch is both fully autonomic and probably a complete answer to the question.

Obviously it’s good. It’s a fucking miracle that he thought he’d never live to experience: Haru leaning into him with his full weight, breathing just a little rough and hands considerably rougher. Haru _making a goddamn effort_.

Haru is jerking them both off, erratically because Jesus, honestly, he doesn’t know how and who the hell doesn’t know how to jerk off, only Haru. Rin would love to say that he’s making an effort as well, but all he can do is groan into it and slide his knees even further apart to let Haru press his thighs in between. He doesn’t even care that it should suck, because it doesn’t. Haru has the basic common sense to get a hand around both of them at the same time and Rin would marry him. He would marry him in a second, he would elope to America, he would do anything if there was a chance that Haru might agree to go along. He would bury his face in Haru’s fucking rock outcropping of a shoulder and let Haru keep on touching him exactly like that forever, until he couldn’t even try to talk.

He finds Haru’s wrist and then his fingers and slows Haru down, evens him out. Too late, he considers that there’s a risk here that Haru might get bitchy at being told what to do. It turns out, though, that Rin doesn’t need to worry because all Haru does is hum _interestedly_ and press a little closer, squeeze a little tighter. And twist, which is a move that he definitely learned from Rin about ten minutes ago only it’s Haru doing it now and it feels—it feels like that’s exactly it. That’s way too much. “ _Shit,”_ Rin says, and some other ridiculous noise, and he bites Haru right on the neck, exactly like he wants to and much, much harder than he meant to but it’s too fucking late.

“Yeah,” Haru says again, scratchy and surprised, and the jerky slide that he’s got going is suddenly extremely slick. It’s nothing but sheer self-preservation, after that: Rin wants to slump forward into Haru, he wants to let Haru catch them or let them slide to the ground and he’d be happy there too. He wants to shiver into Haru’s warm solidness until they are both well and truly done shaking themselves apart and then he wants to stay there afterwards, but he yanks himself backwards, the exact wrong direction, the direction that leaves Haru panting there all by himself and not looking half as surprised this time. Or, looking differently surprised, if that’s even a thing.

Haru sits down hard and Rin will feel bad for that, sometime, after his ears and his fingertips stop buzzing.

 

Rin is suddenly gone, but not gone far—he’s right there, all slack and fuzzy and three feet away, leaning back on the tile like he can’t move another inch. He didn’t have to pull back like that, probably, but Haru’s not exactly going to complain because frankly, he’s enjoying the view. Rin’s flushed bright, clashing pink all the way up the back of his neck. And even with that edge of wariness that’s still there, he looks good like that, Haru thinks as he scrapes himself up from his own patch of floor. He looks more like that uncomplicated, impossible friend that Haru remembers having, the one that Haru would have followed into any stupid thing, though he’d never have admitted it—would have joined the relay team for, even. It’s a bit of a messy situation, but it’s nice. Or it’s nice right up until Rin actually realizes that Haru is watching.

“What?” Rin growls, curling in on himself in prickly defense like Haru has suddenly betrayed him. Like he’s _going_ to betray him. Just by seeing him look like that: not just self-satisfied but really happy for once. As if it could give Haru the advantage in some bitter contest they aren’t even having; as if it could make Rin weak.

There’s a sudden, sick pain in Haru’s gut—the symptom of a perfectly obvious disease that Haru has only now thought to diagnose. “Me too, you know,” Haru tells him, sharply. He’s being slow again, only this time it is _hurting Haru’s feelings_.

“What?” Rin says again, but more like he’s actually confused this time and less like he’s bracing for impact.

“I like you, too.” Rin freezes, and Haru rolls his eyes and corrects himself. “I’m in love with you. Probably. Too.”

Rin drops all his defenses like a stack of plates on the floor. There’s no crash but Haru can read it in his face, in his eyes gone wide. It’s fascinating. It makes the pain in Haru’s stomach lance up into his chest in a worse, sharper, kind of nervous way. “Oh,” Rin says, very small.

Was he supposed to wait to say it? Wait for what, exactly? Some even _more_ obvious time? He hadn’t foreseen this particular mistake, and what was sharp inside him flatlines quickly. Terribly. “I thought you knew that I knew. You kissed me.”

“No,” Rin sputters. “Uh. I’m not—Um. I’m.” He _is_ , though, after all. He looks so shocked that he _has_ to be. So it’s fine, even if Rin’s limp now in a different way, a de-boned trout way, and he just stares instead of moving when Haru goes to touch him again.

“It’s okay though, I think,” Haru says when he realizes that with his hands on the squishy part just under Rin’s ribs, he can feel how Rin is still breathing all uncertainly as if that terribleness is in him, too. But he’s just making sure, and when Rin nods dumbly Haru gets both of their shirts off properly so that they can finally wash and get in the bath. No sense in wasting all that perfect water. Rin looks up at him like he’s thinking about saying “what” one more time when Haru stands and offers him a hand up, but then he decides not to, which is nice: Haru likes him whether he’s being an idiot or not, but not is vastly preferable.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to cahootsandotherthings for your valuable and extremely long-suffering (but always the correct amount of shark) advice.


End file.
